THE GREATEST SCAM OF ALL TIME

Washington's Enron-style accounting is now so widespread and so deeply ingrained, the nation could be bankrupt and not even know it, says investment writer Martin Weiss.

The official 2005 budget listed the U.S. federal deficit at $319 billion.

But according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), if the government followed the same generally accepted accounting principles it demands of corporations, the real 2005 deficit would have been $760 billion -- or more than double the official number.

And that's just one year of new debt the government has to take on to make ends meet. If you take a look at the total debts and obligations the government has accumulated over the years, the picture gets much worse, says Weiss:

At the end of the first quarter, the total federal debt, including government agencies and government-sponsored enterprises, stood at $10.2 trillion.

But if you also include the estimated unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other programs, the total federal debt is at least $54 trillion, based on three separate studies -- by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and the Brookings Institution.

Source: Martin Weiss, "The Greatest Scam of All Time," Money and Markets, September 19, 2006.